This story is a sequel to Advanced Lessons
Discord's been reformed, or so we've all been told. Sure he's as unrepentant in his mischievous ways as before, but who are we to argue? So, when he tells Princess Celestia that he wants to reach out to his fellow former villains, how can she say no?
Why not humor the very embodiment of Chaos, if he wants to do something constructive with his time? The fact that Princess Celestia knows a couple of individuals that could actually use some support in dealing with their past actions, doesn't hurt either. Discord might not be the ideal candidate for the role, but how badly could it turn out...?
...It's probably best, that Princess Celestia plans on keeping an eye on things anyway.
--A fun one-shot, that lets me set up the groundwork for some future stories.--
Why it took you so long to write this?
6058197 Just been juggling so many different story ideas at once, with only so many hours in the week. Plus, I had to work in everything I wanted to work into this one, for the sake of seguing into some future stories. And then there's the process that goes into keeping the humor, while maintaining the characters. It just goes on and on...
So I assume that this takes place before the events of season 4?
6058794 Correct. This one only takes place a short time after Advanced Lessons, which takes place after Twilight becomes an Alicorn and before the first Equestria Girls movie...Yeah, my stories have kind of fallen behind the canon timeline.
I'm pretty sure you meant 'really'. Other than that, great story!
6058989 Good catch. Thank you.
I'm glad you enjoyed the story.
6059280 You're welcome.
It was one of the funniest that I've read in a long time.
That was wonderful. And did I see hints for future stories in here?
The only thing I don't get is Celestia not knowing Twilight knew Trixie. Surely Twilight would have mentioned the encounter way back in season 1? And Trixie was THERE when Twilight was putting on that show for the Saddle Arabians and Celestia, so surely she should have seen her or asked why the town had all this Trixie-related decorations everywhere!
6059921 Yeah, a big art of writing this story is to set up for some future story ideas I have.
And, I admit, I'm putting a certain amount of handwaving into play here, both to facilitate future stories and because I kind of thought the "Magic Duel" episode handled things a bit clumsily. Given how often Ponyville is damaged and then fine by the next week, it doesn't seem that strange that they could have cleaned things up fairly quickly. And as far as Trixie being present during Celestia's visit with the Saddle Arabians, as I recall Celestia was up in the stands, entertaining the dignitaries, while Trixie was off to the side and pointedly trying to avoid attention.
One of the few things that didn't give me headaches with that episode, was Trixie helping out with Twilight's display without seeking attention for it. Not that the episode wasn't entertaining, but it was really tangled and had some similar plotholes of it's own. Just the fact that Celestia didn't make any follow up into a unicorn discovering a powerful, corruptive artifact and using it to conquer a town, raises questions.
So, like I said, I am handwaving certain things from canon here, both for the sake of future stories and to do what I can to make sense of what happened in that episode.
As for the first time Twilight encountered Trixie way back in "Boast Busters" Twilight didn't mention Trixie by name at all in her Friendship Report. I even checked, to be sure. She didn't even mention that there was another pony involved in her learning that lesson. That Celestia doesn't look into it, is probably the most believable bit of handwaving here. Particularly, sense Twilight never seemed to take Trixie's actions from Boast Busters personally, unlike her friends.
Anyway, I hope I managed to answer your question in a satisfactory manner. If not, feel free to let me know.
6060138 Ehhh...I guess it's sorta plausible, but I assumed the Alicorn Amulet thing might have been discussed with Celestia off-screen. Still, if that's how you want to play it...
6060333 Such is the nature of fanfiction...Huh, just noticed we don't have a pony emoticon for shrugging. Weird.
But anyway, I like to think it's reasonably plausible. And besides, not gonna let a silly thing like canon get in the way of telling a good story.
EDIT: Incidentally, I looked at your stories, and I think the story titles are great. Personally, I always have trouble pinning down things like story titles and summaries. Looking forward to setting aside some time to check out their contents.
6060503 Thanks! I hope you enjoy them, a lot of my work's kinda...weird.
Well, that was a lot of fun all around. I was going to comment about how much fun Luna was in the beginning, but then the whole story was just hilarious the whole way through so it felt kind of silly to single out any one part like that. All that really leaves is the fact that I was a bit disappointed to see you get rid of Trixie so fast (although you did kinda need to leave room for her to finish Hero Antagonist before you explore her more), and it looks like you have some very interesting plans for Sunset which should be interesting to see in the future, especially because having Chrysalis and the changelings on hand could totally stop her from ever making it to the mirror or result in our favorite cranky changeling being sent through instead of Twilight.
6060138 Yeah, Magic Duel had a lot of issues and was really a very disappointing episode overall. I was really hoping they would take the opportunity to do some meaningful exploration of Trixie's character and explore the moral issues over the events of Boast Busters before they became friends at the end, but instead they threw a cheap plot device at Trixie to avoid having an actual lesson or meaningful character development. It is one of the first victims of the trend towards spectacle over substance that has been dragging the quality of the show down lately and the reason I will not watch an episode without a strong recommendation at this point.
Also, while it is perfectly believable that Twilight was not thinking clearly enough to take the out here, Boast Busters does give her a very good way to explain how she knows Trixie without mentioning the potentially embarrassing parts so you may want to use that the next time Trixie comes up.
6060595 I was tempted to keep Trixie around for the story, but I was already juggling things with the banter between Celestia, Luna, Chrysalis, Discord and Twilight. And, yeah, Hero Antagonist is a part of my-...story-verse? Anyway, I don't want to play around with her too much till I've hammered things out in Hero Antagonist. If it's any consolation, she is going to play a significant part in my take on the Equestria Girls. As you guessed, I've got quite a few divergences in mind for it.
Plus, I really liked the idea of Trixie just flatly refusing to believe that all of it wasn't a dream.
And that's a fair take on some of the recent episodes. Some of them I've really enjoyed, others were on the 'meh' side of things.
And, yeah, Twilight is really quick when it comes to dealing with dangerous situations...Not so much in social situations. Especially, where it concerns Princess Celestia.
I'm glad you enjoyed this story. If any questions or problems come to mind, let me know.
EDIT: And as I've discovered in "A Very Merry Chrysalis", the banter that seems to spring forth when I put Celestia, Luna, and Chrysalis all in the same room is simply gold.
EDIT.EDIT: 6060592 And I'm sure they'll be fine. I look forward to reading them.
6060623 Yeah, I understand. Trixie would have been a ton of fun, but there was just too much going on already and you do need to keep her free until you get through her story so it makes sense to leave her out of this story. That and having her think it is a dream will be lots of fun, especially because it is something Luna could easily do as a prank if she wanted to and get the others in on it to screw with Trixie's head. Also, knowing you will have her in your EQG divergence is making me want to see it even more because I know her human version appeared in the movie which could result in the two of them running into each other for an extra level of crazy shenanigans.
Yeah, the unfortunate truth is that they have started pushing aside the characterization and meaningful interactions that made the show great in favor of quick gags and flashy stunts. The worst offender is probably the season 4 finale which was a total train wreck which threw out the heart and soul of the show to get a flashy, over the top cartoon battle which ultimately came off as very generic and utterly meaningless because I didn't care at all about the generic baddy of the week with absolutely no character beyond "evil" who was obviously going to loose at the end, but it seems like every episode since the end of season 3 has been hurt by this trend to some extent. Even the good episodes like the recent one with Discord at the Gala suffer from it because they drew out Discord being awkward with flashy effects and cheap jokes for longer than they needed to to get the point across and it cost them the ability to have him interact with Celestia which I found tremendously disappointing because a two minute conversation there would have done more to explore Celestia's character than the rest of the series combined.
Also, I'm not sure if this ever got fixed or not, but I know editing in replies like what you did for 6060592 used to fail to give notifications. Fortunately, this will resolve the issue if the bug is still there and let us test to see if it got fixed at the same time (assuming that was actually an edit).
What, was the nature of their relationship not publicly known? I, like Luna, find it being technically inaccurate mildly surprising (though I remember Celestia has some odd romantic hang-ups from Advanced Lessons) but I find it far more surprising that the public and the staff wouldn't be gossiping and assuming even if they weren't going that far yet.
You spelled Discord as "Discrod" at one point.
Quite funny. Discord's presence seems to cause it to veer closer to crack than usual for this series, I see. Not sure if this level of action is sustainable, but fortunately most of the humor comes from the dialogue rather than the slapstick effects (though I will say you write him fairly well-- little touches like the bit where he peels his coffee mug to reveal an apple really help keep him feeling in character). One of my favorite lines is "you had me at extortion", another being Blueblood's "sorry, I didn't see anything."
And we never find out what she was going to say. You tease.
6065651 It's not really super public yet. As it's only just a short time after Advanced Lessons, it's only just starting to get into the rumor mill at this point. And even then there's a difference between a circled around bit of gossip and having Princess Luna shouting it in the middle of a hallway, for any passerby to hear it. And Chrysalis and Celestia differing feelings about how much they care about what others know about their relationship at this point. Celestia still feels the need to maintain a certain amount of propriety, when it comes to her position, so she's a bit leery of any intimate activities becoming too well-known. Though, she's perfectly comfortable with those around her knowing that thinks well of and cares for Chrysalis. Chrysalis on the other hoof, has issues about being seen as emotionally weak, and doesn't want anyone involved in the whole 'caring' part of the relationship. But, as changelings are much more blase and casual about sexual issues than ponies, she really doesn't give a damn if anyone knows about their mostly nonexistent, at this point, physical relationship.
And as usual, while Chrysalis could have explained the situation to Luna, she thought it would be more amusing to toss fuel onto the fire.
Thanks for the spelling catch.
And, yeah, having Discord added into just about anything lends a certain crackish-ness to the scene. Which, as you noted, is hard to maintain. Pinning down his general irreverence and amusing brand of omnipotent sociopathy added some extra time to the writing of this. Trying to set up jokes based on his utter and complete randomness is difficult, so it seemed more achievable for most of the humor to come from the others dealing with the consequences of his pranks, than the pranks themselves. Case in point, the coffee mug bit seems like something he would do, but not something that's really funny in and of itself.
And those were a couple of my favorite lines to write, as well.
Right alongside Trixie's "...Nope."
6065925
If nothing else, you'll probably have to cut back slightly on the amount of wackiness if you want it to go anywhere in less than thirty chapters.
But that's a long-term issue, the chapter was enjoyable, have no doubt, and if it was somehow sustainable, I doubt I'd complain.
6067983 Oh, this story is kind of a one-shot, so that won't be an issue here. I do see myself writing up more oneshots of future RVA meetings, but, yeah, the wackiness will be scaled back some in the future. You might say, I'm using this story to find my footing with a character like Discord.
Anyway, the main reason this will be a one-shot, despite my planning to show that there are more such meetings, is that...well, it can get pretty spoiler-y, pretty quickly. If I get ahead of the timeline, I start running into either handwaving why Discord wouldn't drag in reformed villains to fill seats (Basically, looking for a good reason why Discord would choose not to bother people) or give away the fates I have in mind for villains in future stories.
I mean, if I went ahead with more RVA meetings and Manti from Intermediate Lessons showed up, not that she's going to, that'd be a pretty big giveaway that something big and spoilery happened. It's another case where I can't get too ahead of my other stories. So rather than leaving a story hanging for months at a time, I decided to make this a self-contained story, that gets continued in its own brand of oneshot sequels.
Not sure why I felt the need to explain all that, as you didn't really ask...
Whatever, I'm tired and my brain is running weird right now. Stream-of-thought to keyboard is in-effect.
Incidentally, I've found a better way to go about explaining my headcanon for my portrayal of the changelings. It's actually rather elegant. A story where Twilight is doing research on them herself...I'm perhaps more proud of that idea than I should be
...
...How long is this reply now? Ughh...I better stop now. Glad you enjoyed the story.
6068103
Huh. I didn't notice the 'complete'. I was expecting at least an epilogue to find out what Luna was asking about. Are you planning to address that in another story, then?
6069436 Yeah, this story is meant to serve to set up for a couple of future stories. Specifically my take on Equestria Girls and a story involving Luna attempting to give Chrysalis some dream therapy, at Celestia's behest.
EDIT: Eh, if a few more people want this to be multi-chapter though...I could probably come up with something and that is the point of the edit story function. Let me think on it, see if I have some ideas on hand.
6070572
I don't know that it needs to be multi-chapter, it just felt like there were some (that Luna conversation in particular) unresolved plot threads. You could always just write that up in a separate story and put a note either at the end or in the summary saying it's addressed there. I think it works best as a shorter piece, so if you did add a bit more, it might be best to stick to one or two more chapters at most.
6071538 Agreed on all points. I'd go into more detail, but today has been exhausting.
6071571
Re-reading this (Because I was trying to remember which fic had the maid dropping things at Luna referring to Celestia's lover and it turned out to be this one), the alternative to another chapter might be a direct sequel that doesn't have Discord but instead deals with the fallout, like explaining why Celestia knows Trixie and discussing Sunset Shimmer... or just one of the two.
Also, somehow I missed this the first time but:
The first "DIscord' is missing an 's'.
6159285 Yeah, I was actually plan something along those lines, not too dissimilar from my story "Conversation Piece" in that it will involve an OC of mine. If I can get to it soon, it will let me significantly expand one OC's personality and explain the background I have planned for Trixie. Which, incidentally, would inform upon some things that will occur in "Hero Antagonist" and some future stories. It will also give me a chance to write more of Celestia on her own, without bouncing her off of Chrysalis, Luna, or Twilight so much, which I think will give me a more solid grip on her character.
In any event, sorry about the lack of updates this last month.
Between some writer's block and a lot of real-life issues popping up, I haven't been able to churn out much lately. Hopefully that will be changing soon.
And thanks for the catch, I'll go deal with it now.
Why do I get the feeling that the Villains Anonymous meetings are actually going to get crazier post-Tirek when Discord's desire to be helpful and make friends is genuine?
6224365 I do plan on taking some divergences from canon, but you can definitely expect future meetings to have their own brands of zaniness present...and, if I pull things off correctly, some genuine drama.
That was a lot of fun. I'd like to set Celestia explain Trixie and Sunset.
You can has review!
Heh. You did it again. These stories are quite consistently
disturbingfunny.8871268
As you may have noticed, I had something of a long hiatus, that I'm working my way out of now. Hopefully soon, I'll have the time to keep putting up updates. But for now, I have a lot of work in real-life.
Heh. It really is heartening to see that I can still gain new fans.
Though these comments and favorites really do make my day, so I'll try to prioritize updating during any free time I do get.
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I am going to take a look at your others soon, so those might multiply. Thank you for commenting on my comment!
Discord is such a jerk, I love it :D